Monday, October 27, 2014

Outrageous Fortune

Here I go, getting my hopes up again. I start to daydream about a good, funny, real sitcom based around a lesbian character/characters might finally make it to the air. I’m still waiting for NBC to unleash “One Big Happy,” the Liz Feldman/Ellen DeGeneres collaboration about a gay lady (Elisha Cuthbert) and her straight male BFF (Nick Zano) who decide to have a baby together (the test tube way, don’t worry). It’s supposed to air mid-season and has a shiny “Coming Soon” tag on its website. So, you know, fingers crossed.

But while we wait let me get all excited about another project, also from a formidable TV team. Funny gay lady Fortune Feimster and MyFake TV Wife Tina Fey are working together on a potential series. The sitcom would be a semiautobiographical take on Fortune’s life growing up in North Carolina. Tina and her “30 Rock” producing/writing partners Matt Hubbard and Robert Carlock are set to produce. ABC has picked up the pilot, which is still being written, and we’ll see how it goes from there.

“At the end of the Skype meeting she says, ‘OK, get to work!’ so I kind of had a heart attack. I thought, ‘Does this mean what I think it means?’ but I didn’t want to ask her. And that was it. We started working on it, we pitched it to three networks and they all wanted it. We ended up picking up ABC because they seemed the most excited and it was a great fit.”

Though Fortune already had a bit of an in with Tina, having worked on the pilot for “Cabot College,” a series set in a women’s college that didn’t end up getting a pickup.

So can this new series make it where “You Me And He,” “I Hate That I Love You” and “My Best Friend Is a Lesbo” et al didn’t make it? Who knows. But we can sure dream.